Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

That is certainly not what the records show. But on Monday—I think her first intervention since her appointment to the job—she had this to say:

The diversification of our exports has reduced the volatility of the terms of trade.

In that single sentence she is wrong on three key economic fronts. First, as Mortimer points out, the terms of trade effect is caused by strong world demand, not by the diversification of our exports. Second, we did not get a diversification of exports under your term of office in government; in fact, we narrowed our export base. The services sector rate of growth in exports fell from 8½ per cent to two per cent, and—

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